When Witches Wake

by Hilary Foxhill

  “By meddling in my life that you aren’t even a part of!? And in secret!?” Emily was now totally furious. “I’m not doing this right now. I can’t do this right now,” she told her mother. “I’m hanging up the phone.”

  “No!” Karen cried. “Emily please don’t hang up!” The line clicked silent and the call ended. She had hung up. Karen was left staring at the phone in her hand, thinking about the danger her daughter now faced, thousands of miles away.

  Emily was stunned and furious. She had been feeling so excited about the trajectory of her life, and had thought that things were finally going as planned. But it was all a lie. It was all just a spell. Her mom had put these images in her head, and it was just a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not her true path, but a path Karen conjured up and slipped into her mind. And she had just played along like a puppet. How could she have been so stupid? So gullible and easily convinced. To fall for something her mother of all people came up with. She was just trying to suck her into her life, like she had since she left the country. If only things had been different with her mother. Had she known that her mother was familiar with magic, she might have been more willing to open up to her about it. She could have gotten advice from her and maybe even realized they have more in common than Emily ever thought. But even then, she just would have found out sooner that it was a setup. Maybe then at least she wouldn’t have gotten so far into this charade. She had to back out, before it was too late.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  EMILY AND CLAIRE sat in the living room, talking quietly. Jeremy had come home from the hospital the day before and he was asleep in his bedroom.

  “So, we have a date for your initiation,” Claire said, smiling. “Jeremy just has to recover a little bit more so he can be strong enough, but he’s confident it won’t be much longer before he’s ready.”

  Emily looked at the floor and didn’t say anything.

  “What’s wrong? Why are you so upset? You said you were ready for this,” Claire said.

  “I thought I was,” Emily said. She didn’t want to look at Claire.

  “Well what changed?” Claire asked.

  Emily sighed. “Everything changed," she said.

  “You’re going to have to give me more than that. From where I’m standing, nothing has changed,” Claire said.

  “The dreams I started having? The dreams about the coven and about you and,” she cut herself off.

  “Yeah. Your dreams about the coven. What about them? Did they change? Did you see something new?” Claire asked.

  “No,” Emily said.

  “Well what happened?” Claire said. She was getting frustrated. She didn’t want Emily to back out now. Everything was ready, and they were only a few days away from her initiation.

  “The dreams weren’t from me,” Emily said. “I wasn’t seeing the future. I was seeing what my mother put in my head.”

  “Your mother!?” Claire said. “What does your mother have to do with this?”

  “I found out that my mother is a witch,” Emily said.

  “Seriously? I knew you had it in your blood!” Claire said. It made so much more sense how easily some things had come to Emily.

  “No. She put a spell- spells on me. And that is why I started having the dreams. I’m not a witch. I’m just a pawn in whatever fucked up game my mother is playing,” Emily said.

  “Wait a minute,” Claire said. “What kind of spell, exactly? Explain to me what she told you.”

  “She said she did one spell for me to find my true love. And one spell to find myself,” Emily said.

  “And you started having the dreams after she performed the spells?” Claire asked.

  “Yes.” Emily paused. She remembered the dream about her parents divorcing. “Well, you know I had some dreams when I was younger that were kind of clairvoyant.”

  “Yes, but they stopped?” Claire asked.

  “Yeah. I had forgotten about them really, until Jeremy asked about it," she said. “I think I had others like it but I don’t remember them. I guess I grew out of it.”

  Claire was surprised at Emily’s assumption. “Why would you think that?”

  “I don’t know when they stopped, but my mom put these spells on me and they started up. And I haven’t told you how much the dreams started to ruin my life,” Emily said.

  “But they led you to us,” Claire said. “Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “No.” Emily felt tears beginning to well up in her eyes. “It doesn’t mean anything because it's all been a lie.”

  “What about it has been a lie?”

  Emily stared at Claire, and Claire could see her getting angry. She pressed her lips close tighter.

  “You were born with this and the spells just brought it out of hibernation,” Claire said. “What exactly is so bad about that?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Emily said as she shook her head.

  “Then why don’t you explain it to me, Emily?”

  “You don’t know my mother,” Emily said. “You don’t know how many times she has tried to manipulate my life without considering what I want, or what’s best for me.”

  “It sounds like she did want what was best for you,” Claire said.

  Emily shook her head again, but didn’t respond.

  “Do you know the script of these spells?” Claire asked. “Do you know exactly what they said?”

  “No,” Emily said. “She only said they were meant to find my true love and to find my true self.”

  “That sounds pretty selfless to me,” Claire said. “If she was really that broad with her words, then she left the desired results open to what the universe wanted for you. Not what she wanted.”

  “Why are you sticking up for her? Is it like a witch thing? Can’t throw another witch under the bus for meddling?”

  “No, actually. She shouldn't have meddled, as you call it,” Claire said. “Ideally, you aren’t supposed to perform any magic on anyone who doesn’t explicitly want you to. And I am not on her side. I’m just saying that it sounds like she was trying to improve your life in a way that worked best for you. It doesn’t sound like it would benefit her in any way except that her daughter would be happy. I don’t see why you’re so upset about it.”

  Emily looked as if she was about to scream at Claire. “Because I thought I had power, Claire! I thought I had finally found my path and a meaning for my life and a person I could spend the rest of that life with! But then I find out that none if it was me. It was all just because of my fucking mother!” Emily’s breath was fast and heavy and she looked back down at the floor, regretfully.

  Claire tipped her head gently at Emily and didn’t say anything. Had Emily thought that the two of them were meant to be together?

  “You have a lot of nerve acting like you know anything about this anyway. You barely know me, and you don’t know what’s best for me. Neither does my mother,” Emily said. Her lips quivered and her eyes slowly welled up with tears. “I’m getting emotional and I think we should stop talking about this."

  “Emily. I’m not saying I know best. I’m saying that it sounds like your mom tried to put you on the course you were meant to be on. It wasn't about what she wanted, and she didn’t know that this was going to happen this way. Maybe you should go easy on her.”

  “Maybe you should mind your own business,” Emily said. A tear ran down her cheek.

  Claire rolled her eyes. “Fine." She didn’t know what to say. She felt like Emily had shut down. She couldn’t force her to be initiated. Emily could only be initiated if it were by her choice. “So are you backing out?”

  Emily took a moment to respond. “I don’t know,” she said.

  Claire was losing her patience with Emily and the conversation. “Well you better decide quickly. We have all put in a lot of work for this to come together so quickly. Frankly, it is a bit irritating that you are even considering backing out when we are this close. There can’t be any doubt in your mind. Yo
u can’t undo it once you’re initiated. I was trying to help you, but I can’t talk you into the initiation." She questioned whether or not she should even continue talking, or if it was a lost cause at this point. “I can just try and convince you that this has all been you. The magic you’ve seen. Your dreams. You putting your images in Jeremy’s head. Your mom’s spell must have just relit something that had laid dormant for years. She is a witch, so you were born with it already. I don’t know how the last few weeks have felt for you, but to us it has felt like you belong here. And if it felt like that to you too, you shouldn't throw it all away just because you’re pissed off at your mom.”

  “Ugh!” Emily's face burned red. “You don’t know what you're talking about.”

  “So this isn’t about you just being mad at your mom?” Claire asked.

  “No!” Emily screamed.

  “Fine. Fucking tell me what it is about then.”

  “It’s about me feeling like I was getting somewhere. Finally finding my place. And then finding out it wasn’t me at all.”

  “Oh my GOD, Emily.” Claire rolled her eyes and her hands cured into fists in the air in front of her. She wanted to shake Emily. “You had these dreams before. You forced them away and all these spells did was wake them up! You should be fucking thankful.”

  “I’m leaving,” Emily said.

  “Then go.” Claire crossed her arms and glared at Emily. “You need to decide by tonight if this is happening or not.”

  Emily put her jacket on and slammed the door. Claire felt the cold air shoot across the room and hit her in the face. She wanted to cry. She didn’t understand why Emily couldn’t listen to what she was saying. And the thought of Emily leaving, not being initiated and not being in the coven made her feel ill. She had never felt that way about a possible coven mate before. Was it because she wanted her in the coven, or was it more than that? She stood up, walked into the kitchen, and poured herself a shot of whiskey. She drank it, and poured herself another, drinking the second shot as quickly as she drank the first. She looked at the empty glass sitting on the counter. A drop of whiskey slowly rolled down the glass and appeared to melt onto the countertop around the base of the glass.

  “Don’t start this again, Claire," she said out loud. She had been doing fairly well lately at not drinking her emotions away. She didn’t want to start it up again now. She needed to have a clear head. Her life depended on it. She craved a warm body next to her, and she wanted to go crawl up into Jeremy’s bed. Just to feel close to him. But she didn’t want to wake him. He needed his rest. She put the glass in the sink and went down to the basement. She decided that she would paint out her frustrations instead. Picking up the brush and staring at the blank canvas, she only wanted to paint Emily.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  EMILY GOT INTO her car and locked the door. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. But she knew she needed to get home. It still wasn’t safe to be anywhere alone. She drove home and did her best to keep her tears at bay. She squinted through the dark to try and find a spot near her building. The parking around her neighborhood only got worse in the winter, when cars stuck out further into the street, sat farther apart, and jaggedly perched on small snow banks on the curbs of every street. She found a spot two blocks away and pulled in quickly. She didn’t manage to correct her horrible parking job. It wasn’t any worse than any other on the block. She grabbed her bag and climbed over the snowbank onto the icy sidewalk. Walking quickly, she tried not to slip on the ice as her eyes darted all around her. Every shadow and every sound made her nervous. She got to her building and felt relief standing under the light at the locked door. She closed it quickly behind her, and ran up the few stairs to her level. The hallway was wet with melting snow that had tracked off of residents before her. She noticed a larger puddle in front of her door and her stomach tightened. She got to her door and it was dented in. She looked up and down the hallway and saw no trace of anyone. She tried the handle and the door was still locked. It was then that she noticed something written in a dark and dripping substance underneath where the door was dented. Please don’t let that be blood. She thought.

  It read: “We’ll come back for you.”

  She wanted to go inside her apartment but she knew it wouldn’t be safe. She pulled out her phone and called 911. She put her back against the wall and slid down into a sitting position, clutching her bag and waiting for the operator. She explained to the woman what happened and stayed on the phone with the operator as she waited for the police to arrive.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  EMILY STOOD ON in the cold porch of the covenstead, holding Eli in a kennel in one hand, and a duffel bag in the other. She tried to hold back tears, and she didn’t know how much longer she had until the broke through. She rang the doorbell again. Please answer , she thought. Claire opened the door. Her hands were covered in smeared paint and her expression quickly turned into one of concern when she saw Emily.

  “What’s wrong- what's going on?” Claire asked. She helped Emily inside.

  “I’m sorry. I would have gone to my dad’s place, but I don’t want to put him in danger. I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “It’s fine, of course. But Emily, what happened?” Claire asked.

  Emily looked Claire in the eyes and she felt her guard dropping. All the walls she had put up since Claire told her they could never be together started to dissolve, and for a brief moment she didn’t fight it. She fell into Claire’s arms and let go of it all. The tears came fast and she couldn’t speak through them. Everything she had thought she handled so well over the last few months hit her hard and had nowhere to go but out in a river of tears. She cried over all the sleep she had lost, her relationship with her mother that seemed utterly hopeless, falling in love with an amazing woman that she couldn’t have but still had to be around if she wanted to follow this path she had started down. She cried because she finally felt real fear at the possibility of being murdered. And in her own home no less. The killings had all seemed so detached from her life. Her daily life had become a blur of surreal events, and the murders just faded into the background of all the other unreal things that were happening. She couldn't believe that she was a witch. That any of these people could be, really. So she couldn’t believe that she might actually be attacked by these killers. But now they had come for her. And she felt her fear shift into a confident rage. If they wanted to kill her for being a witch, she would fight back as a witch.

  She composed herself and wiped the tears from her face. With swollen eyes, she looked up at Claire. “They came to my apartment. They tried to break in and couldn’t, but they left a message on the door,” Emily said. She felt Claire’s grip tighten on her arms as her face morphed from worry to anger.

  “Fucking hell,” Claire muttered. “Well this is where you should be then. You’ll be safe here.”

  “I know,” Emily said. “I hope Eli will be okay here too?”

  “He will be fine,” Claire said. “What matters is that you’re safe.” Claire looked upstairs towards Jeremy’s door and back at Emily. “I am going to call the others, and tell them about what happened. We can’t be alone anymore. Everyone needs to be on guard, and we need to meet as soon as possible to decide what we are going to do about this.”

  Emily nodded in agreement. “Claire?” Emily said. Her tears had stopped and her face was tight. “I’m not backing out of the initiation.”

  A sigh of relief escaped Claire's chest and she hugged Emily. “Good." She pulled back and held Emily by her shoulders, looking her straight in the eyes. “Let’s get to work then.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “WHAT ARE WE supposed to do Suze?” he asked.

  Suzan was sitting on the edge of the bed, gently rocking back and forth. She casually held a cigarette in her hand, and the ash was getting longer. She scraped her lower lip with her thumbnail and stared at the wallpaper.

  “Suze?”

&n
bsp; “I’m thinking!” she cried. “They’re using their magic against us. We need to get the upper hand again." She stood up and began pacing in front of the bed. She took a drag from her cigarette, and the ash fell onto the floor. She stepped on it and didn’t notice as she continued to pace. “We’ve scared them, and we have them cornered. I know we’ll win, I just don’t know how yet.”

  Angel stood up and walked over to Suzan, wrapping his arms around her. He lifted her chin with his finger and touched his nose to hers. “You are amazing, and you’ll think of something.” He kissed her, and she stopped him after only a moment.

  “Not right now, Angel. I’m thinking." She continued to pace and mumble under her breath. Angel laid down on the bed, crossed his legs, and turned the television on.

  “Turn it off please,” Suzan said without looking up.

  He rolled his eyes and powered the television off.

  “We are losing time. Since the last one survived, he knows what we look like.”

  “But he didn’t see our faces,” Angel said.

  Suzan shook her head. “He could have. It doesn’t matter. There are more witnesses now, and I know we're running out of time.”

  “I still don’t understand how he survived,” Angel said.

  “It's because of their fucking magic.” Suzan lit another cigarette. “Dirty fucking witches. There is no other explanation. He should be dead. And we should have gotten that new one. We should have gotten her first. She is probably the weakest one and should have been the easiest target." She stopped talking and started nodding her head manically. “Yes. We need to get to her. I can sense it. We’ll stake out her apartment. She has to come back at some point, and we’ll get her then. If we catch her and keep her alive, we could lure them all to us and take them all out together.”

  Angel sat up straight. “All of them at once?” he asked. “How would we even do that?”